Quiet day for me on the homefront, nursing a whopping headache, a cold that is finally on the mend, baby is napping, wife is at work. So I thought I'd have a look at my guns as I've been eyeing my collection for downsizing. Something that seems to happen after bachelorhood is left behind and a baby comes along.
It's had me thinking long and hard about favorite guns. My wife likes that Marie Kondo lady, and asks me if my guns "spark joy".
Problem is so many of them do. I tried just now to go look through my collection and pick just one. I could not do it. Although there are 5 stand outs.
From the top, going around:
My favorite 1917, just a bit modified with a cut down barrel, King Super Police sights, slightly modified butt for some custom walrus stocks, and hammer off of a Registered Magnum.
This gun is responsible for the only time in my adult life that I felt that "kid on Christmas morn" feeling. I purchased a few guns from David Carroll, and he included this one, without me knowing it was coming. The others were all great guns, but this one, boy, it just made (and makes) me very happy. He was also kind enough to just let me pay (an entirely fair price mind you) whenever I could. Great guy.
My Colt Camp Perry model, equipped with King sights and a set of Ropers that fit me (I looked a long time for those). I adore S&Ws, but as much as I hate to admit it this is my very favorite gun to shoot. The first time I took it to the range with some of my friends, one of them brought their dad who is an army ranger. He, uh, almost wouldn't give it back. He spent the rest of the day with it.
It may not be my most historic gun, it may not be "correct", and it may not be a S&W, but I'll be damned if there isn't something incredibly relaxing about putting a couple boxes of .22lr exactly where you want on paper in an afternoon with it.
My first ($150) registered magnum which, had no rear sight and took me years to find one. It may not have any finish. It may have an extra hole in the top strap. It may be the ugliest registered magnum on earth. But you know what? I love it. I love shooting it. I love that people don't feel intimidated to shoot it. I love the mystery of it having apparently spent time in Mexico before finding its way to Washington state, hanging on a nail in a shed, until the owner of the house thought; "I bet someone would like that old revolver". Why yes sir, I would like that old revolver.
When I bought it, I didn't really know what a Registered Magnum was. But when a man with a table full of knives at the gunshow put a $150 sticker on it, and set it in front of me, I of course had to scoop it up. I may not have known much, but I knew any .357 magnum with a good action was worth $150, even with a missing sight.
Today I put a set of 'broken' Ropers on it, which fit my hands very nicely. They are a set that were so incredibly warped when I bought them that there was a gap at the bottom wide enough you could read the S/N through them. I put them on a gun years ago, and once in a while would notice when I was moving guns around that the screw was loose, so I absent mindendly tightened it. Eventually, that action seems to have put them right. I had hoped to find a similar set in rough shape, to match the gun, but "rough" with Ropers seems to mean "molested", and the couple molested sets I put on there were never quite right. With looking at which guns I like the most, I just decided that these ropers which fit me and I love, can go on this gun which I love shooting. Here they shall live.d
What can I say about this modified Model 3 DA? I mean really. It's been chopped, refinished, heavily modified (the changes to the hammer/firing pin are a work of art). I fell in love with this jalopy that few others seemed to even notice.
Then the fine people at the SWHF were able to tell me that the S&W Service Department did the modifications! I mean, I knew they were well done, I knew the overall effect was grand. But to get that bit of information was more then I had ever dared dream. And on top of it, this gun has been stalking my family! In '49 when it was modified it was done for someone in a town just north of where my Mom was born, and most of her side of the family lives! Prior to that it spent time in Spokane, right around when my Grandfather/Mother were living there before moving back to Minnesota.
How could I not love such a gun dearly?
This 'Keith no. 5' sort of Colt Bisley SAA, which isn't.
As I think any younger gun collector would do, I have gone to the gun writers of the era I found myself loving, and reading Keith, Roper, and McGivern a young fellow finds himself with...desires. One of which was for a proper Keith No. 5. I had assumed that I would have to have one made, and had been slowly putting together parts for such an undertaking. Then this gun popped up on an auction.
It was labeled as a King modified Colt Bisley. No mention of the SAA Front Strap / Custom Backstrap (diagnostic of a Keith no.5 job). I paid less then the work to make the gun would cost, much less what a donor gun + parts would be. It was to be my last big splurge before marriage, and what a thing it turned out to be.
The gun was entirely pleasing mechanically (overly so to be honest), but the advertised "King" work was not. King put his name on whatever came out of his shop, and here we just had some little ampersands on various bits of the gun. No matter, the gun is straight up glorious mechanically, and the S&W rear sight entertained me, as clearly S&W made then, as they did for a long long time, the best factory sights you could get.
Then, some time after I had owned it, one of my roommates said that he had to sign for some package for me. This was baffling, as it seemed to be an envelope. Inside was the original invoice from Colt, in 1920, for all the modifications made to the gun for one C.M. McCutcheon. A man who clearly had some great ideas about what constituted a good Bisley. I'm baffled that Colt didn't immediately start manufacturing these guns as a New Bisley, or something else, because to say that this thing is good is an understatement.
Sitting here, nursing this headache, drinking some coffee, and reflecting on God's blessings in a time that the world comes together to celebrate his magnificent gift for us, I have to say... I may not be a wealthy man, but God has blessed me with the guns of wealthy men. Guns which 'spark joy' and give me an taste of what it means to have and enjoy very fine things. I love that old S&Ws can give that taste to anyone, on any budget, and that the recognition of quality that fine pre-war S&Ws taught me to recognize, and appreciate, led me to guns which are pleasing in so many dimensions.
So, in this Christmas time, have any of you been reflecting on your favorite Gun(s)?
Are any of you capable of picking just one? I'm clearly not
Merry Christmas!